(Dead? Pshaw! He was..ehm...SLEEPING!
Zal:...I was?
Yes!)
Traveling along naturally-worn forest paths was all well and good as is, but traveling along such paths with a river nearby tended to make the experience all the more enjoyable. He'd paused by the edge of the river, dipping a leather-sewn waterskin into the clear water to fill it up. Of all the time he'd speant traveling, the water skin was one of the most recent things he'd gotten to make the life he lived easier, and it wasn't even that new anymore!
Setting back on his heels, the zora turned the metal cap of the waterskin back on, slipping the strap over his head and letting it hang down by his side. Atleast that was one aspect of traveling that he hadn't had to become reacustomed to; all the baggage. The seclusion part of it, mainly having nobody to particuarly talk to aside from various rather random peopel along the way, had been a bit more difficult. Three years of it in the beginning, one year with the group of others he'd traveled with (and her, of course), and then this past year once more with nobody.
'When I left home,' he thought wryly, having tilted his head back to look up through the trees at the rays of sunlight streaming through, 'Id've never thought traveling would be this...well...lonely.' His thoughts were interuppted, however, as the peircing screech of a cooper's hawk rang through the still air. Zalrin didn't think to much of it, as they were in a forest and there was bound to be hawks around, but a moment later he heard the faint sound of voices. One of the voices seemed to shout then, he thought he caught the words of 'where is he?' in a voice that was...familiar, and seemed to leave his mind numb, in a way.
Within moments he heard the sound of something hurrying throught the underbrush, frozen where he stood by light confusion, mixed with the sensation that the distant voice had left. He jerked his head to look over his shoulder as the movement suddenly ceased, his eyes widening as he saw who was standing there with a mixed expression of horror, adoration, and disbeleif written all over her face. And then the same voice that he'd heard drift over to him a moment ealier - the same voice he'd forced himself to remember for the past year, despite the phsyical limiations of memory trying to wisk it away - spoke his name in the same tone that her face expressed.
Zalrin's eyes softened then, disbeleif written over his own face as well. He felt himself stand up slowly, taking a light step forward as his leather boot pressed against the spongy forest floor. Despite the fact that it was already obvious who it was, he found himself speaking in the same manner as she, squinting one eye lightly as he did so, "Aquaria..?"
